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Chapter 49

Dei continued to jog, piecing together the evidence he was given thus far.

There were various weak spiritual signatures in the area. He knew that spirits could be born from dead creatures, such as the case with the Wraith. There was a shattered Sword of Shattered Refuge laying about, and a hidden pocket of protection somewhere in the wall.

Most importantly, something he hadn’t considered relevant so far: the bog.

Dei long suspected that it was no coincidence how Convergences formed in large caverns. Instead, certain environments gave rise to a particular type of mana that formed the Convergence.

This was partially proven by the Convection Convergence. Dei asked Clever if, at any point, the Convection mana in the area began to lower.

Clever responded with feelings of confusion, denying that such an event happened. His [Heat Sense] could tell that the entire ecosystem still lived on, without the Convergence. Weirdly, he did detect that the existing Convergence mana became less… hostile, after the Anchor was destroyed.

Clever stated that the mana stopped digging into creatures as much, trying to build up heat in them as quickly as possible.

Dei remembered how his mom stated that Anchors all had magical effects, such as how the Wilderness Convergence would likely make plants grow faster. From Clevers knowledge, Dei suspected that the Anchor would make the Convection mana in the area far more aggressive, a mirror of the Obsidian Elementals intent.

The Bog in the middle of it all was likely the focal point of all the oddities in the area, which made sense when Dei considered that all the other spiritual signatures surrounded that bog. Why were there no such signatures in the bog? Because of creatures like the Spirit Frog. In a large congregation of life, stronger creatures would emerge. Creatures with more tools in their skillset, able to better take advantage of easy options, such as vulnerable spirit signatures.

What would the Spirit Frog have done if it met a helpless fractured spirit sword? Absorb it.

Working off the assumption that the bog was the center made things clearer and more… grim. Bogs were places of death, composed of decaying plant material. If it was previously a massive refuge, was there a former city there? Dei’s tremor sense wasn’t the most descript when it came to things that were far away, but he couldn’t sense any standing buildings.

At the same time, there were rocks near the surface of the murky water, which Dei initially assumed were natural formations. What if the buildings were buried under layers of rot?

If it was a dead refuge… Dei could see a Decay convergence forming from its ashes. When he last visited, there was a plant called a “Growberry Bramble of Decay,” which feasted on Decay mana in the area.

Such a Decay Convergence could form a magical effect similar to the Convection or Wilderness, where it made things decay faster. It could further accelerate the destruction of whatever remained of the remnants of a city…

Dei looked at the broken sword in his hand again. He considered the spiritual signatures around him, and to the one he was already traveling towards.

Was there a ghost of a survivor ahead? Were they alone for hundreds of years, trapped in a room with nobody to help? Dei didn’t know how long ago, if at all, such destruction would have happened, but that would be awfully lonely.

He hoped that the spirit he was walking towards was merely a victim of coincidence, trapped somewhere in an area that happened to have other spirits, a more recent development.

Speaking of other spirits, were all the rest tools? Dei sensed no desperation from the sword, not even the slightest hint of loneliness.

What if all the spirits with a mind quickly went insane or killed themselves, leaving only the simple or weak ones to wait out eternity…

Dei frowned deeply.

What was the barrier that protected his physical body? Was it a machine of sorts, a technology of this civilization? Or was it truly a ghost with history and memory? Dei had no way to find out, as he didn’t even know how to contact it.

If the civilization could conceal itself so thoroughly using the barrier, and had such strong weapons as the shining blade he’d just picked up, what killed them all? What brought about such ruin?

Dei feared that very soon… he would find out.

Because checkpoint four, the final checkpoint, was two beings that hadn’t moved in the entire time Dei had watched them. No creatures approached the cavern they sat in, they simply stared at the wall endlessly for the past five months. He was tempted to go around them, but he had ways to escape, and wanted to see his enemy. He didn’t sense even the slightest bit of Spirituality from them, and he could quickly dive deeper down if needed.

He’d tested with Clever, and found that he stopped giving off a cold aura in the Physical world when he dove down to the second layer of the spirit realm- for only a few seconds of course.

From this, Dei assumed that the physical world could barely interact with spirits on the first layer, but any deeper would become too disconnected for there to be an overlap.

Still, he wanted to avoid being discovered. He set up a mind to manage his Presence in an inconspicuous way in order to avoid being discovered, like he’d done before, but he wasn’t able to set a mind to meditate on the current moment. He didn’t have the mental resources to spare, and didn’t want to risk having a slow reaction time.

As ready as he was going to get, Dei dropped down into the first layer of the spirit realm and began stalking forward.

* * *

Dei left Clever behind far before he reached Checkpoint Four, as he wanted no chance of them seeing him. Clever was about half a mile from checkpoint four, if he took a straight line and shattered every wall in the cave systems between them. It was closer to five or six miles when traveling normally.

Dei didn’t need to worry about that though, phasing through one wall at a time while taking frequent breaks. He made sure to always be full on SP before making the next jump, so he was ready to run away if the two creatures in Checkpoint Four managed to see him. He had the Physical Dei watching him now as well, ready to communicate any changes if needed. Both of them were tense, knowing that these two creatures could have taken part in the downfall of a civilization, if they weren’t responsible for it directly.

What if they were so powerful, that it was these two creatures alone that ended it? Dei doubted it, apocalyptic creatures like that were most likely hard to come by, and would be carefully managed by whatever force they belonged to. Instead, he imagined that these two creatures would be scouts left by the force to search around the area, removing life forms that survived.

If he looked at it from this point of view, then it would make sense for them to eventually go dormant. If you found nothing for hundreds of years, why keep searching?

A lot of this was assumption though, and there were holes to his logic. Mainly that these creatures would have to be machines to do such a task, unthinking, for so long, but they appeared biological in nature when his vibrations scanned them.

Second, how would they survive for so long? Surely they would die of old age or starvation if they just stopped moving.

His desire for answers drove him forward. He’d made too many assumptions, it was time to find a truth.

* * *

Step by step, he got closer. Dei located the longest tunnel that gave him a clear view of the creatures, aiming to look around a corner and barely get a visual on them.

He’d chosen one that was a bit more above the creatures, giving him an elevated position to look at them from.

Just around the corner now, waiting for the Physical Dei’s confirmation that they weren’t reacting, he crouched low and kept his guard up.

Only when he stopped moving and sat in silence, did he realize that some sort of outward emotion slowly crept into his mind. It didn’t come from him, instead pressing against the skin and fighting to burrow itself deeper. At first, he thought it was some sort of “aura of fear” that the two creatures had, but it felt more… personal.

Searching his soul, he found the emotion pressing through his connection to his affinities. Even Soul, a normally neutral affinity, was pushing him towards acting a certain way.

When he realized where the pressure came form, he allowed some of it in, and the emotion his affinities wanted him to feel took him off guard.

It was nor hate, fear, or perseverance. His affinities felt pure disgust against whatever sat just around the corner.

‘Damn, what the fuck is wrong with these things? Who did they piss off to have forces of nature hate them?’

More importantly though, how were they alive? Dei wanted to get far away from them if they continued to live despite affinities hating them. Just as he was getting ready to quietly book it out of there, his Physical self gave him the all clear that they were still not moving.

He would have sighed, but that required him to relax a few muscles. Instead, he carefully peeked around the corner. The long straight tunnel provided a clear view of the creatures. If he had to describe them in a single word, it would be “intimidating.”

The first thing he noticed were dark scales along their entire body. They stood on hind legs with backwards knees, like that of a dog, and four-fingered hands with long claws sat loosely at their sides. His point of view didn’t show their entire faces, but he noticed that they had snouts covered in teeth on the outside. They looked like sleek lizard people, probably closer to velociraptors than an iguana.

The final feature that drew his eye though were their long, trunk-like tails, each with a bulb at the end.

‘Wait. That's not a bulb, its a… cone? Or some sort of bell?’

He leaned forward and squinted, trying to get a better view, when a screen popped up in front of him, causing him to jerk back slightly as his [Identify] responded. For a panicked moment, Dei thought he’d somehow accidentally fired off a Wrath Identify, but sighed in relief when he realized it was just his Skills and affinities acting weird around the creatures.

[Demon-Kin

Demons are a scourge on all life in the multiverse. Wanting nothing more than the destruction of all, they seek final entropy in the form of draining all energy and using it to fuel their endless expansion. Time and time again, they are pushed back, but never destroyed. They are locusts, devouring everything in their path to create their armies.

A single demon is a planetary conqueror. They are immortal in every way, with unkillable souls that always reconstitute their bodies with time. The only small mercy that life is granted in the face of demons, is that they are incredibly rare, and cannot multiply. The ritual to create one is nearly impossible, leading to a very finite amount of demons, but such a limitation does not stop their march of death.

While a demon cannot create more demons, it can bear offspring in the form of demon-kin. Unthinking flesh in the shape of a creature, demon-kin serve as the armies to carry out their parent demons will: pain and suffering across whatever planet they find.

Neither demons nor demon-kin hold access to the System, completely rejected by Gods and affinities alike, they gain power by stealing it from the affinities of those they’ve slain, devouring portions of their victims souls to take into themselves. Such a process is limited though, each affinity fighting its containment within their bodies, allowing only a limited number of Skills to each demon or demon-kin]

When he realized what the screen was, he moved back around the corner to read it. He went through it quickly and saw that it was a “freebie” of sorts granted to him by his Skill. It wasn’t necessarily an Identify of the creature in front of him, as that did require him to gain access to the information in their soul, but the Skill gave him a brief history of what demons and demon-kin were, so he could get some context for why the affinities did not like this thing. They took affinities for their own, without being given permission, so the affinities probably felt scandalized.

He was getting ready to peek around the corner one more time and get a clear view again, when his physical self quickly said “Muscle twitch, get out of there.”

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Immediately, he was down the way he came without ever looking back as his other self explained further.

“Neither were moving for a while, but I still watched closely. I was barely able to catch the moment when their left pinkies twitched slightly at the same time. I might be paranoid, but I didn’t want to risk it, so I thought it would be best for you to retreat.”

“Got it, thanks. That's the exact call I would have made too.”

“I know.”

* * *

As Dei came from the wall, Clevers eyes snapped onto him, a reminder that he was not truly invisible in the realm of spirits.

Manifesting himself physically once again, Dei picked up the red blade from where he’d dropped it before as he explained to Clever everything that happened.

While he couldn't get him to understand it all, Clever eventually got that he needed to watch out for anything with “demon” in its name, and run away if he could.

While Dei could fight the demons and potentially gauge their strength, he had literally no reason to do so. They also gave him the heebie jeebies, so this would be the one checkpoint he skipped.

Confirming that the demon-kin stayed dormant, Dei began the final leg of the journey: the very last path to the trapped spirit.

Months ago, when he set this goal for himself, he was in desperate need for help, guidance, and companionship. Now, he had power and a path forward. The spirit was no longer necessary for him to reach… but he was not so selfish as to immediately give up on doing so. Even if he no longer needed them, they still needed him.

For that, he would fight.

* * *

Unknown to either Dei’s, the demon-kin spoke to each other in an untraceable way, in an unrecognizable language.

“The Spirit. Designated enemy?” One said.

“Unlikely. It has been two hundred and twenty seven years since the fall of the last human. Likely a wandering scavenger.” Two responded.

“Are they marked?” One asked.

“Yes. The mark tells that they are human, not spirit.”

“So we will kill them.”

“Yes. The mark will lead them back, and we will kill them.”

Information exchanged, the two fell silent once again.

Waiting.

* * *

POV: Justin Tabrey

After quickly accessing the records of the case to find the village of the original incident, Justin immediately set out, traveling all through the night.

For someone of his level, a few sleepless weeks was nothing. One night? Child's play.

Arriving at the gate, Justin felt his staff begin the proper greeting towards the village Shaman, Iora. She was the very one that started the entire debacle, a paragon of bias and rage, throwing every protocol out the window. She was a representation of all the taint that infected their society.

He canceled the signal his staff attempted to send. This would be no polite visit, and he was not here as a councilman. She had no right to know anything.

Quietly, he slipped through the conjured stone, phasing through like water and bypassing all the set defenses. A subtle manipulation of Mind and Heart made the guards forget he ever existed, and he continued inward. Once he hit the main road, Justin quickly made his way into a butcher's shop, pushing aside rattling ropes of bead and bone.

“I’ll be out in a second!” he heard a woman's voice say from the back, so he made his way to the stone counter to wait, disguising his Shaman's Staff as a common cain. He normally looked about twenty, the youth granted by his attempts at increasing his lifespan wildly successful. Quickly, he cast an illusion over himself to look a bit more grisled. A scruffy beard, slightly wrinkled face, and worn clothing fit the look. He changed his heat signature, lowering it to match that of someone getting on in their years. His scent marked him as someone who’d just stepped off the road after a long trip, not dirty as that would not be befitting of a government worker, but a bit… dusty.

A million little tweaks made the perfect disguise, senses humans didn’t have and colors they couldn’t perceive were all accounted for, every single change taking hundredths of a second. In a single moment, he was someone else entirely.

The woman walked out from the back, greeting him “Hello there! Is there anything I could get for you?” she asked, and he was already subtly changing her emotions to make her more compliant.

“Yea, nothing much. I’m here on a follow up of the investigation that happened a while back, involving a few Grrata’s. I’m not here to investigate you, I just need to ask them a few questions. Where could I find their home?” he asked in a monotone and dreary voice.

The woman looked a bit sad at the mention of the family names, and Justin understood why. The official story was that a mothers child was killed and replaced, but she just couldn’t accept it. She still didn’t accept it, which gave Justin some hope that they knew something the council didn’t.

Or she’d truly lost her mind.

The father agreeing with her spoke of something different. He was a known player, his personality being that of a realist. From the documents, Justin doubted he’d lose his way, even if he was consumed by grief.

After a beat of silence, the woman gave him a few directions involving turns, counting the door flaps, and what layer of the wall their home would be on. Thanking her, he turned around and walked out.

The moment he’d closed the beads, the woman forgot their entire meeting, returning to butchering a fresh Canidae.

Closing in on the home quickly, Justin spotted the less skilled spies that watched the house, likely Iora’s personally planted ones rather than a councilmembers watch.

Again, he blocked their perceptions of his existence. Iora had no right to know he was here, and the council member's subordinates would not tell her, as information on every council member was on a “need to know” basis.

Flying up to the door flap, Justin sensed that the father walked towards the entrance before he’d announced his presence.

Just as he landed on the ground, the flap of the door was pulled to the side, and two furious eyes locked on to him. The man was tall, Justin estimated around eight feet tall. While he had the skin color of a surface dweller, Justin could almost see the word “goliath” in his Racial tag.

“What?” Gor Grrata asked him.

“My names Justin, I want to prove your son's innocence” Justin stated his tweaked purpose. While he would still kill the son if Oura proved correct, Justin knew that the Grrata’s needed some support, and he would be on their side until proven otherwise.

The fathers body stayed tense, but Justin could see an unintentional relaxing in his expression.

“Why?”

“I’m a Shamanic Council member. The others are disregarding protocol, which subjects your family to abuse. It is wrong, and I oppose it.” He tried to keep it simple. He had no doubt that the Grrata’s were tired of hearing people either sympathizing with them without offering real support, or throwing abuse their way. Justin sensed Gor’s short fuse in how ready he was to punch Justin square in the jaw if he said the wrong thing, even if he was a council member… perhaps especially if he was a council member.

Gor continued to study him for a time, trying to read any sign of lie. Justin wasn’t, but even if he was, Gor wouldn’t be able to tell.

Gor grunted, then said “Wait here, see what my wife says” before ducking back into his house.

* * *

It was later in the day by this point, so Justin saw the parents put the kids to bed, despite the dimming still being around twenty minutes away. The kids hemmed and hawed, but the parents were firm. Without any tantrums or tears, the daughter and… present son laid down, and were left by their parents.

Justin watched with truesight as the son got out of bed almost instantly when the parents walked away, starting a whispered conversation with his sister about why they were going to bed early, but he didn’t mention it. He didn’t doubt the parents could hear it too, but neither put a stop to it.

The parents led him further back into the house, into their room, where there were some basic privacy wards.

They were about to start talking when he held up a finger, telling them to give him a moment, then began casting his privacy sphere.

The first layer was a total silence sphere, blocking all sound. If they got past that, there was a false layer with a fake conversation taking place. If they got past that, there was a second, stronger sound blocking barrier. More and more past even the third layer, far too many for most to ever penetrate entirely.

Fifty seven layers of traps, feints, false conversations and barriers were quickly erected. The kicker? The real conversation wasn’t even at the center. Justin hid the real conversation around layer forty three, where any spies digging would overshoot.

“A ward to block the spies is erected, let’s get straight into it. First, ask your questions, then I’ll ask mine.”

* * *

Half an hour later, they were still in deep discussion, Justin sensed as multiple of his wards were compromised, but was still confident in their integrity. Hardly even five were pierced.

The parents gave him a rundown of the situation, before they began their theorizing of what it was. They raised a point he hadn’t considered yet: Dei might have some sort of in-born blessing passed down to him from his father, potentially a dormant berserker-like affinity based on an incredibly deep concept.

Justin leaned back in his conjured chair, staring at the ceiling as he considered it.

That would make sense, wouldn’t it? While he’d never heard of such a thing as a ‘hidden berserker affinity,’ Justin hadn’t made it this far in life by not believing in unknown dangers. Some children were born with unnatural affinities, and these changed their personalities drastically compared to others of their species, sometimes even changing the species entirely.

They told Justin of how neither knew where Dei was even dropped off, the mother tearing out a large quantity of her own memories to hide the location. He respected the dedication, nodding in recognition when she stated as much.

He finally found out what started it all as well: the boy inflicted soul damage on himself to hit a cloaked enemy. A full evolution above him, this “Dei” managed to puncture its hiding Skill and make it clear to the other Hunters.

Without a mana storage Skill, Dei would have needed to draw large amounts of mana through the connection to his affinities all at once, a task which should have shattered the soul… except his parents told him of how Dei was born with an unnaturally strong soul, leading to months of pain in the earliest portions of his life.

The more they talked, the more Justin found out about the earliest parts of Dei’s life, the more he agreed with their theory: Dei was born with a dangerous unnatural affinity that would endlessly empower the strength of his soul and cause him to lose his mind.

Something didn’t fit to Justin though… Why would Oura kill such an asset? Even if Dei lost his mind, they could just release him on the legions of demon-kin, an untiring combatant against an untiring army.

What did Oura know? Was this something that had happened before, a known condition that previous generations completely failed to contain, leading to cities being annihilated?

No… the Elites would kill such a person. This had to be something that surpassed human limitations. Humans could not level up past five hundred, but they could change their species to continue growing.

The only path Justin could see would be if Dei’s dormant affinity would change him into an uncontainable beast.

His eyes widened when something Fou said came back to him, his head whipping back down from the random part of the ceiling he was staring at.

“Wait, did you say there were white lines criss-crossing his skin after his meeting with Iora?”

Both Gor and Fou leaned forward, sensing that Justin was on to something, and Fou nodded.

“Did it look something like this?” he summoned a thin wire of pure white fifty-times concentrated Soul mana. While it didn’t have the same concepts imbued into it, the wire should look the same.

Fou nodded again “Yes, but it was far thicker than that, closer to half the diameter of a rope, not the fishing line you have there.”

Justin again began thinking on her response. The only Skill Justin knew of that could hold a soul together had horrific implications. If it was thick as a rope, the boy still did not have the dexterity to control it, which was bad news.

It was a Skill called [Connection], a fragment of a Primordial Child's Rights.

The Primordial Children were dangerous entities with immense pride. They didn’t care if others used fragments of their power, but it was known that they hated when they used it badly.

Many years ago, there was a wizard who managed to figure out a small glimpse of Dragon Fire, and he used it to burn down all of his enemies.

The city he lived in was unceremoniously annihilated by The Champion. Not because The Champion didn’t want the man to use it, but because “It hurt to watch that stupid man bring shame to the power of our Skill. It could have done so much more than what he used it for.”

If Dei was somehow born with [Connection], but couldn’t use it properly… he could bring down calamity upon all Gem Dwellers.

“Oura you fucking idiot… has your hubris doomed us?” Justin whispered to himself.

Oura didn’t like threats to his power. If this boy managed to master Connection, integrating it into himself, they could have a Reaper that helped humans! Did Oura think that he wouldn’t be able to contain the Reaper somehow?

But wait… If Dei was on the path to becoming a Reaper, a proper user of [Connection], where did the mindlessness come in?

Justin ran hundreds of calculations in his head, linking and unlinking different theories and ideas. How would Iora have known about the dormant connection until after she’d almost killed the child? Why did Oura agree with her?

He was missing too much information. He needed to wait for his friend to come, and they would figure out what to do next.

‘One step at a time, Justin, one step at a time.’

Foresight users tended to plan too far ahead, losing themselves in their convoluted plans until they disconnected from reality entirely. He needed to keep himself grounded.

Taking a deep breath, Justin explained his own theory for what happened, and asked if he could see the cradle they kept Dei in when he was younger. Justin needed to start the process of forming a karmic bond to the boy, so he could be ready when backup arrived.

‘Just a few days. Whisper was always quick, she’ll be even faster with what I’ve told her so far. I just need to keep the eyes on me, so the council member spies don't suspect I have ulterior methods.’

* * *

Justin sat on the floor of the Grrata’s guest room as the mother walked in, looking mournfully at the crib of her lost boy.

‘Fuck, I’ve been too emotionless this visit. I can’t forget that these parents lost their son. The mother especially, her Love affinity must make it difficult… the soul damage from the situation must take its toll, but she puts on a strong front.’ Justin inwardly grimaced at how “business-like” he’d been all visit. He didn’t want to be Oura.

He had to be better, right now.

“We’ll find him” Justin assured her “and he will get his justice.”

Fou nodded to him, saying nothing, and left.

Wasting no more time, Justin activated one of his Skills that tapped into karma, and began searching.